


let it be known

by flightofwonder



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: (out of ignorance), All Your Faves Are Trans, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, Misgendering, Name Changes, canon aligned, i stan 1 (one) family, the world may never know, vague references to potential transphobic attitudes and behavior, when will i watch this movie without sobbing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 12:47:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14261304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightofwonder/pseuds/flightofwonder
Summary: Before all that, he was once a chubby little kid who climbed onto his Mamá Coco’s lap and whispered the truth in her ear because he told Mamá Coco everything. Miguel wouldn’t remember a lot about that day, wouldn’t even remember exactly what he said.But he would always remember that she smiled.





	let it be known

**Author's Note:**

> Intro to my transgender Miguel universe. (Though his name doesn't stay Miguel for very long.)
> 
> Always open to crit, reviews keep me from the Final Death, and my tumblr can be found at flightsofwonder.

Mamá Coco was the first one he told.

And yeah, okay, some people could say that telling your great-grandma who had trouble remembering stuff one of the biggest things in your life was like cheating on a math test. Except something like this didn’t have the answers at the back of the textbook. It didn’t have answers anywhere, except for maybe on library computers, with lots of cleared histories and quickly closed tabs. 

And it wasn’t about the bad memory, okay? It was because ever since _he_ could remember, even before she got bad at remembering things, the youngest Rivera would tell Mamá Coco everything. That didn’t stop as he got older, and he naturally continued to tell her about all the new things he learned about the town, about the world, and about himself.

When he went to her sobbing over a pottery bowl he broke while playing with Rosa, Mamá Coco just smiled, patted him on the cheek and whispered to him, “ _no llores por favor_ ”. It was something she said a lot, and always with a comforting smile on her face that never failed to put a crying child to rest.

As she wiped away his tears, Mamá Coco picked the broken pieces of colored pottery from his hands and promised him that it would be their secret. She was telling the truth, because nobody came to scold him the next morning. As soon as he could, he ran into her room and gave Mamá Coco the biggest hug in the whole wide world.

He didn’t tell his Mamá Coco because it was a secret she would forget, but because it was a secret he knew she would keep. And this was the biggest secret he had.

(Well, until he watched Ernesto de la Cruz perform on a grainy T.V. at an open-air shop one sweltering summer day. Ever since then, that secret had eclipsed all the others. Telling his family that he wanted to listen to music, play guitar, and be even a little bit like his no-good family-abandoning great-great-grandfather? _That_ would make telling his entire family that he was actually a boy look like a _fiesta_.)

But before that, before he started sneaking away at all hours to collect a myriad of forbidden things: de la Cruz merchandise, discarded cardboard and papier-mache and screws for what would become his first guitar, and information from people online who made him think he might not be crazy after all; before he took some scissors from the workshop in the middle of the night to cut off his stupid long hair, which left it a stupid ugly mess because leather scissors _apparently_ didn’t work like that, and they had to get Señora Martinez from next door to make it look “cute, almost fashionable, no worries _niña_ , it will grow out again”; before a fateful bedtime when he told Mamá and Papá with an uncharacteristically trembling voice that he wanted to be called Miguel instead of María, that he _hated_ María, and then hated how they had to hold him when he cried so hard that he shook down to his bones, like a baby, like a _little girl_ , and this wasn’t how this was supposed to go --

Before all that, he was once a chubby little kid who climbed onto his Mamá Coco’s lap and whispered the truth in her ear because he told Mamá Coco everything. Miguel wouldn’t remember a lot about that day, wouldn’t even remember exactly what he said.

But he would always remember that she smiled.

\--

The greatest unexpected thing about being in the Land of the Dead was that nobody _knew._

Well, a few knew. Specifically, his deceased family, who were hell-bent on sending him back on a crazy condition, without the thing that gave him meaning, gave him _life_. He couldn’t be himself at home, at least not completely, not the way he hoped to be. All he had was a dumb name that didn’t fit and a future of making endless shoes. If music was taken away from him, there would be nothing left. There was no way he could take that blessing and survive. It would have to be Ernesto or nothing.

(He had gone over it a million times in his head that night, how he’d tell his hero that he chose his name after his favorite Ernesto de la Cruz character, and oh, haha, yeah, by the way, you have a trans grandson, hope you’re cool with that and won’t awkwardly tiptoe around it or blatantly ignore it or snap at me when I remind you that I’m actually a boy, but yeah anyway, I named my dog after your horse in the same movie, so we’re a team, too, that’s cool, right? Or maybe he was better off not mentioning it at all, or was that the coward’s way out? What if he didn’t even believe he was related? What if --)

His spiraling mentality abruptly broke at the sound of a high pitched voice ahead of him. The lanky skeleton jovially chided him for falling behind -- _keep up chamaco_ , and that word felt like a bird taking flight in Miguel's chest every single time he heard it -- as he led him down past the base of the city, the fantastical neon lights and creatures far behind them. Squinting at the crumbling architecture that surrounded him, stones and bricks softly illuminated by distant torchlight, Miguel barely caught sight of the skeleton stepping right off the rickety ledge with a grin and without a care. He barely withheld a gasp as he ran forward to look over the edge, but just seconds after those brittle bones broke apart into a jumbled mess below, he was pulling himself back together, piece by piece, barely pausing in his energetic gait to do so. Miguel couldn’t help but gawk at the sight for a second, and a lightning-quick thought tinged with a strange jealously sneaked past his guard - _it must be nice, to be easily taken apart and put together just the way you want_ \- before he shook it off and ran down the stairs after him.

Miguel wasn’t totally sure what to make of this Héctor. He was a strange man, but not bad, Miguel was pretty sure. Even though he didn’t know anything about music or de la Cruz, he was still helping him meet up with him, and all he wanted in return was to get a photo on an _ofrenda_ so he could visit his family. There wasn't anything sketchy about that. Actually, now that he thought about it, it was kinda sweet.

But maybe Miguel was being too trusting, or didn't totally think this through. Miguel prided himself in trusting his gut, and he didn't think he had anything to fear with Héctor. But if he was honest with himself, he may have become slightly biased. Maybe because was because this man – skeleton? whatever he technically was – was the first person, alive or dead, who looked him in the eye when Miguel told him his real name and who just...believed him. Maybe it was because of that fluttering feeling he got in his chest when Héctor called him _chamaco_ and _muchaco_ , like it was the easiest thing in the world.

(Maybe, even just for a little bit, in the Land of the Dead where almost nobody knew María Rivera, it could be.)

But the freedom of being easily accepted in a strange land was nothing compared to how Miguel felt when he stood on that stage, let out his first _grito_ , strummed his borrowed guitar and music came out, came from _him_ , for the very first time. For a few precious minutes, he was just a boy performing for a crowd of strangers, doing what he loved to do. As the music poured out of him and Héctor danced and let out _grito_ after _grito_ with him, made music _with_ him, he was overcome by an emotion that was bigger than joy or excitement. For just the length of a song, Miguel was exactly who he wanted to be.

It would be many years later when he would finally find the right words to describe how he felt when Héctor put him down, patted his chest, looked him in the eye and smiled as he told him: “I’m proud of you”.

For the first time in his life, he felt _seen_.

\--

But it didn’t last forever, because it couldn’t. Even the dead version of the universe had to remind him that he was cursed.

“Be on the lookout for a living child. Her name is María, but she also goes by Miguel.”

And, okay, he lied to Héctor about his family, and he felt bad about that. He was going to apologize and explain why he _had_ to lie about that (even though he had no idea why this stranger made him feel so contrite, because really, this was none of this business).

But that look, that all-too familiar look on the face of the first person who treated him like a real _chico_ instead of a confused little kid, _that_ accusing look hurt worse than even the following words did:

“You’re a girl?”

He should have been sensible, maybe even remorseful. But instead, Miguel was overcome with anger. Like Miguel was the only one who tricked someone, used him to get what he wanted, except _that part wasn’t a lie_ , okay? That wasn’t a trick, that was the most honest thing about him, and Héctor was looking at him like _he_ was the one betrayed? No, forget dumb Héctor, forget his dumb photo, forget all of this, just _stay away from me!_

As Miguel marched away from who he _thought_ was his new friend, he tried his best to ignore the tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t remember rubbing them away, but when he looked down at his red sleeve, it was stained skeleton-white.

\--

He knew that he was a kid, and that there was tons of stuff he still had to learn. But this was the first time that Miguel knew, really _knew_ that he was part of something that was so much bigger than himself.

(That name, _Miguel_ , it tasted like dirt in his mouth now that he knew that his childhood idol that he took it from was a murderer. The name he chose and took so much pride in in the past suddenly felt like a stain - worse, like an enemy's uniform, and all he wanted to do was go home and scratch that once-prided word off of everything he owned. But that was one of the smaller things. Not small, just smaller. Right now, he had to focus on what was big.)

(What was big: Héctor was his great-great-grandfather.)

(What was bigger: Héctor was being forgotten by Mamá Coco.)

(What was biggest: He had to go back to the Land of the Living with Héctor’s photo, and make sure that Coco remembered.)

So, the big things took precedence. And saving his family was the biggest thing in the whole world.  

But when Papá Héctor reached out to stroke his cheek as he lay dying ( _again, he failed him, he couldn’t let this happen again, Papá Héctor, please_ ), his great-great-grandfather looked him right in the eye, smiled as best he could through the obvious pain and fatigue, and said a small thing felt really, really big.

“We’re both out of time, _mijo_.”

_Mijo._

Héctor’s grandson made two promises in that moment, right before the lights and marigold swept him home on a blessing:

Number one: He would never forget his Papá Héctor.

Number two: Neither would Coco.

\--

Later, after the reunions and the hugs and the questions he wouldn’t ever be able to truthfully answer, but before the interviews and the Rivera Family Exhibit and the baby sister as the best birthday gift in the world, and _way_ before the doctor trips with his parents and holding hands as hormones were injected and the yearly reunions with his deceased family that would befuddle the Department of Family Relations for decades to come --

Before all that, on a lazy fall afternoon spent listening to a once-little-girl talk about her papá and her audience of one hanging on every word, a not-as-chubby kid took her hand, leaned over and whispered his new name into his Mamá Coco’s ear.

And she smiled.

From then on, the _pequeño músico_ signed every form, homework assignment and music composition with the same proud identifying scrawl: 

_Héctor Rivera._

(Neither of them thought his namesake would mind.)


End file.
